Such a semiconductor mounting apparatus, which is also known in the field as a “die bonder”, is used for successively mounting the numerous similar semiconductor chips of a wafer which are known in the field as a “die” on a substrate or on another semiconductor chip in the case of so-called “stacked die” applications.
From U.S. Pat. No. 7,146,718 a semiconductor mounting apparatus is known which comprises a pick and place system which is set up to pick one semiconductor chip after the other from a wafer table and to place the same on a substrate location. The pick and place system comprises a single bonding head with which the semiconductor chip is taken from the wafer table, transported to the respective substrate location and bonded at the substrate location. This solution offers the advantage that the throughput of the machine for semiconductor chips which have a very short picking time and a very short bond time is very high. This solution comes with the disadvantage however that the throughput of the machine for semiconductor chips which have a comparatively long picking time of one second for example and a comparatively long bond time of also one second is very low. This solution comes with a further disadvantage that the chip gripper needs to fulfil the requirements in detaching the semiconductor chip from the wafer foil and also the requirements in bonding and cannot be constructed optimally for the individual processes.
Semiconductor mounting apparatuses are also known which comprise a picking head and a bonding head, with the picking head picking the semiconductor chip from the wafer table and depositing the same on a support, and with the bonding head taking the semiconductor chip from the support and bonding the same onto the substrate.